


If Perfect's What You're Searching For

by i_claudia



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dog(s), Falling In Love, Firefighters, Fluff, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-27
Updated: 2010-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_claudia/pseuds/i_claudia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's the deputy fire chief. Merlin's magic keeps accidentally setting fires. Silliness and chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Perfect's What You're Searching For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChibiRHM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiRHM/gifts).



> Originally posted on LJ [here](http://i-claudia.livejournal.com/63300.html). (27 December 2010)
> 
> Written for chibirhm's birthday, because she confessed she had a shameful macho men in love kink, and then demanded: “OMG WRITE ME THIS FOR MY BIRTHDAY” and I can never resist her. *smooches*

It all starts with that damned calendar.

Well, to be specific, it had started well after they’d taken all the photos and the calendar had been around long enough to mostly stop being a novelty, (except in the few gay bars in town, where the damn things sell out every time they’re on display,) but Arthur firmly believes that it is all the calendar’s fault. 

It’s more reasonable to say that it starts with a burning building, which isn’t so far out of the ordinary for Arthur, who has been riding around in giant trucks with sirens wailing and ladders on the back since he was able crawl up onto the seat. It’s a fairly average fire, though Arthur thinks it’s big enough that the building will probably be condemned and demolished after they put the flames out. He’s ordering everyone to focus on saving the buildings on either side, to keep the fire from spreading, when Gwaine comes out of the building with a man over one shoulder; Arthur feels something sick and tight tense up inside him before relaxing at the signal Gwaine gives him that everyone’s out, the building is clear, and waves in acknowledgement before turning his attention back to the rest of his team.

When he looks back to see what’s happening—just to see what’s happening, not in any way because Morgause the EMT is gorgeous in addition to being just as able to kill a man as mend him—the guy Gwaine had saved has his tongue down Gwaine’s throat, and oh fuck no, this is not _happening_ to Arthur, it really can’t be.

“Gwaine!” he roars, feeling his voice already scratchy from the smoke billowing out of the _building which is still on fire_. “Stop picking people up while you’re working, goddammit!”

Gwaine breaks free and gives him a cheeky grin, not even bothering to look embarrassed. Arthur levels a glare at him, because there’s still a fire here, and it is not in that guy’s tonsils or pants or wherever Gwaine seems to think it is. “Get the fuck back here!”

Gwaine hands the guy over to whoever’s working the ambulance today—not Morgause, Arthur’s disappointed to note—and runs back over to Arthur.

“Sorry, boss,” he says, looking too smug for a proper apology. Shameless bastard, Arthur thinks, and says: 

“Get that damned fire under control first, and maybe I’ll think about forgiving you.”

They put the fire out before it spreads, and Arthur takes a moment for pride: there’s a reason his unit is the best in the state—the best out of all fifty states, in Arthur’s opinion, which is the only one that matters. Gwaine is still looking smug while they wind up the hoses, and Arthur thinks briefly about throwing him off the bridge on the way back to the firehouse because he is clearly determined to be insufferable about the whole thing, but that would be an abuse of his power and also earn him another lecture from his father, which he really doesn’t need, so he keeps quiet.

Gwaine isn’t in the cabin of the engine, thank God, but when they get back to the station he _still_ looks like the cat that got the canary, the cream, and everything else in the cupboard besides, and when Lance cuffs him upside the head for looking so damn chipper he waves a scrap of paper around in the air.

“I have a date, boys,” he announces, striking a pose. It’s ruined by Morgana knocking his helmet off his head.

“You have a piece of note paper, is what you have,” she tells him dryly, going to hang up her jacket. “That doesn’t automatically translate into an actual date. You don’t even know it’s his number on there.”

“It is,” Gwaine says confidently. “I carried him out of a burning building; how does that move not get me laid?”

“You are sad, pathetic excuse for a man,” Morgana tells him, but since she tells him that every third hour or so, the insult has long since lost most of its potency. Gwaine just shrugs.

“You’ll see,” he replies, and then continues, more dreamily, “God, but he was a good kisser. I wonder—”

The undoubtedly awful firefighting sex pun never comes, because Leon prudently chooses that moment to bump hard into Gwaine and nearly knock him over. “That joke wasn’t funny the first time we heard it,” Leon advises him, voice dry, while Gwaine gets his feet under him again. “A year later it is even less funny.”

“You’re just jealous hot men aren’t throwing their numbers at you anymore,” Gwaine grumbles, but Leon is implacably calm.

“You may have the hot men all to yourself,” he tells Gwaine, with the kind of deep feeling that stems from being a happily married Mr. January who is entirely weary of being given numbers and lewd offers at every turn. Gwaine laughs and punches his shoulder with a wink.

Arthur directs a sour look at nothing in particular, but Morgana catches him at it and has the audacity to look all knowing, which forces Arthur to drop his unconcerned act entirely and glare daggers at her while she breezes past him up the stairs.

“Someday you’ll find true love, too, Arthur,” she calls back to him. “Your own Prince Charming will find you and kiss you awake—” 

“Shut _up_ , Morgana!” he yells up at her.

“—though if you act like Gwaine about it, I’ll have to tie both of you under the wheels of the truck and throw it into reverse,” she ends, thoughtful, and lets the door slam behind her.

“It’s because Gwaine is March,” Percival tells him helpfully. “You’ll get your own hot ladies and gentlemen lining up just as soon as—”

“Oh my God, I hate all of you,” Arthur mourns, and retreats to his house, taking Annie with him.

“I don’t hate love,” he tells her while he walks around the station to his yard—he could have gone straight through the firehouse, but that would have meant going by Morgana again—“no matter what Morgana thinks. I’m not _pining away_ for want of it, either. I just have other priorities right now.”

Annie barks, and he smiles at her, fumbling for his keys while they go up the brick walk to his front door. “See, _you_ understand. I knew you would.”

Annie bounds ahead of him into the house once he has the door open, making for her bowl, which he dutifully fills with water. It’s hot for May already; going to be a terrible summer for brush fires, he thinks. He turns to get a glass of water for himself, and frowns at the calendar adorning his refrigerator. Morgana’s been by again; he keeps taking the damned calendar down, and she keeps pinning it right back up in his kitchen. 

(He still isn’t sure how she ended up with the key to his house, but he hasn’t asked, either, because Morgana has always viewed the line between legal and illegal as a thin and worryingly crossable one.)

The calendar had been his idea, though he hadn’t imagined anything like this. The local historical society had been making an unholy fuss about the ancient fire truck that had sat in front of the station for as long as Arthur could remember, slowly rusting away: they’d said it was a valuable piece of town history and needed to be preserved. Arthur agreed, though for a different reason—he just thought the truck was awesome. But the society had negative funds to start the restoration, and so the truck had kept rotting away in front of the station, looking forlorn, until Arthur came up with the idea of a calendar.

He’d envisioned something tasteful, like the whole crew in front of the truck or the station or photos of them working—maybe Annie, he thought people probably liked dogs in calendars—but then Morgana had gotten her claws into the project and changed it entirely.

“That’s hideously boring,” she’d said firmly. “No one’s going to want to buy a calendar of _that_. What we need is something _exciting_.”

In a fit of delirium, he’d admitted that the original idea might be a little conventional: that had been his first mistake. His second had been to let Morgana organize the photo shoot.

He’d shown up late, too late to put a stop to the disaster: by the time he’d arrived Morgana had already convinced the others, and everything he tried only made things worse.

“I am _not_ wearing that,” he’d said firmly, when she’d shown him the outfit she’d prepared for him. There were... straps, and things, and far too much leather, and there was no way he’d ever be caught dead in it.

“Oh come on, it’s only one little picture,” Gwaine had said, and Leon had rolled his eyes and Lance had only encouraged Gwaine more, but Arthur had stood firm until Morgana had given him a steely look. Arthur should have known better than to stick around when Morgana started looking at him like that. He hadn’t thought clearly or quickly enough at the time to outwit her, and had been too preoccupied by the distraction of Annie happily bounding around—because _no_ , he’d told Morgana, this calendar was basically _soft porn_ and there was no way he was letting Annie be a part of that, which had invited crude remarks from both Morgana and Gwaine—to see the stealth attack coming at him, which is how he’d ended up in front of the camera with absolutely nothing on at all.

“You do have something on,” Morgana had called out unhelpfully from behind the photographer.

Arthur had gritted his teeth. “My helmet does _not_ count, Morgana. It doesn’t cover anything.”

“It covers enough,” Morgana told him, sounding eminently satisfied with herself, and Arthur hadn’t been able to move to go throttle her without exposing even more of himself to the world at large, so he’d gritted his teeth some more and imagined Morgana disappearing to Australia or Mars or somewhere even farther, and had thought the worst was over when he finally was allowed to put his clothes back on. It had seemed that way at first, while the calendar was being created somewhere Arthur never had to look at it, but the moment it had appeared in public he’d learned just how wrong he’d been.

The first had been a call from his father, explicating in a precise tone each and every way Uther was upset and disappointed in Arthur, and how Arthur was to go about apologizing to the public while ensuring all copies of the disgraceful calendar were destroyed, but the others had followed quickly: journalists capitalizing on the scandal, shocked little old ladies (who were marginally better than the old ladies who called who were the _opposite_ of shocked), blissfully happy men and women and high schoolers looking for more information or photos or dates. Job applications had quadrupled until Uther had made it excruciatingly clear that the firehouse was not and would not be hiring anyone for the foreseeable future.

All in all it had been a nightmare, and Arthur was going to live with it for the rest of his life, probably, because he knew his town well enough to realize that today’s gossip would become tomorrow’s beloved mythology, ready to be paraded out over drinks for general amusement at the least hint of interest: the calendar would _never die_ , and it was all Morgana’s fault, and Arthur hated her, he really did.

Except, he thought grudgingly, taking down the latest calendar and tossing it in the bin, that the money had come rolling in, enough to fix the truck and even get it working again, and Arthur will tell no one this but he loves the truck, loves showing off all its antique gadgets to the kids who come to the station for field trips. More than that, he loves riding around with it whenever he can, luxuriating in the rumbling roar of the engine that no amount of muffler work can subdue. He’s the one who polishes it before parades and checks the engine and all the parts to keep it working, and when they pull it out of the garage on nice days he goes out to his porch so he can watch the sunset gild it an even fiercer red and gold. 

He sits down to watch it now from the window, thinking about the puddle of oil Lance had found that morning before the call had come in: the old leak must have opened up, and Arthur will have to check the engine out tomorrow and see where it’s coming from and whether he can patch it himself. Theoretically, he could leave it to the new kid Uther hired on to take care of mechanical work and general upkeep of the station after Gaius had finally retired, but Arthur doesn’t trust anyone else to take care of the truck, especially not some unpaid volunteer who’s too new in town to be familiar with the calendar scandal. 

The sun’s going down fast now, shadows stretching out longer and longer fingers as the pink-orange of the sky purples and grows blue. Arthur stretches and starts pottering around his kitchen, cooking dinner and feeding Annie scraps—he knows he shouldn’t, but she loves playing with the broccoli stems, and he figures vegetables are probably good for her. He makes her practice her tricks for them, though, polishing her skills up for the last round of field trips that should be coming through before school lets out for the summer. They have a quiet night in, Arthur almost falling asleep in front of the TV before climbing into bed and letting Annie sprawl out over his feet. There’s a lingering, aggravating itch in the back of his head from the calendar and Gwaine macking on anything with legs, but it’s faded enough that Arthur falls into untroubled sleep, satisfied and content with the world as it is.

*

After burning his building down, Merlin takes refuge with Will. He thinks briefly about catching the bus to the airport and maybe hiding at his mum’s, but she’ll know he did it with one look. It isn’t as if he’d _meant_ to do it. His stove doesn’t— _didn’t_ —work right, and he’s called the landlord about it five times since he’s moved in, but it still sputters and grumbles and never cooks anything except when it revs itself up high enough to burn his dinner and ruin his cheap pans.

So the stove had gone funny again, and he’d thought it was turned off, but then there had been... flames, and stuff exploding, and it was all a terrible accident; none of it had been his fault. Well, he amends, maybe a very tiny bit. He supposes the wine hadn’t helped the situation. It had only been the one glass, though. Three, tops. He hadn’t really been counting. It had been justified, anyway, because he’d been moping around castigating himself for how pathetic his moping has become. 

Anyway, he reassures himself, the point was that the fire hadn’t been _intentional_ , though it’s not like he can tell anyone that, because it inevitably involves telling them everything, and then they’ll lock him away in the loony bin or prison or both, and neither of those options are experiences Merlin is interested in at all. So he goes to Will’s, because at least Will knows about the magic and can pretend to be sympathetic to Merlin’s problems. 

Had he thought twice about it, he would have known that retreating to Will’s place was only marginally better than his mother’s. Very marginally.

Will is still snickering when the headline on the six o’clock news is Merlin’s fire. “It’s not _my_ fire,” Merlin protests, but the statement’s lost some of its vehemence after three hours of repeating the same thing. He’s much more sober now, too, and his head hurts.

“It is definitely your fire,” Will assures him. “In every possible sense of the word. It is your fire, which you set—”

“It was an _accident_!”

“Which you set,” Will continues doggedly, “because your life is so pathetic and unfulfilled without love to provide meaning—”

“Oh shut up about pathetic,” Merlin interrupts, feeling surly, because Will is wrong about all of that, and Merlin will swear he is wrong until kingdom come. “You work at _Stop & Shop_, loser. You’re still working the same job you had in _high school_.”

Will turns around to give him a look of wounded dignity. “I am _not_ , and you know it. I am assistant manager—”

“Whatever,” Merlin says, and lays his head back down on the kitchen table. He wishes, for what must be the ninety-six millionth time since the day of his birth, that his magic were any good for reversing time.

“You know,” Will muses after a pause in which Merlin can hear the news anchors talking about the fire and estimated damage and God, really, fuck Merlin’s _life_ , “this is just like that movie, the one where...” He trails off, staring at the TV, and Merlin lifts his head a little from the table to squint at him, because it is not a silence that promises positive results.

“What are you—”

“Oh _no_ ,” Will says, in a very quiet, gleeful tone. “Oh Merlin, tell me you _didn’t_.”

“I didn’t,” Merlin says immediately, because he knows Will well enough to recognize that whatever Will is thinking of can mean nothing but bad things.

“But you _did_ ,” Will says, turning around with a huge, shit-eating grin. “Props to you, man. Not everyone has the balls to make out with the firefighter who pulls them from a burning building in front of the entire TV crew.”

Merlin shuts his eyes, because he’s remembering now, remembering all of it. “Fuck.”

“Not quite,” Will offers, because he is a terrible human being. “Though you were really trying for it, there.”

“Shut the fuck up, Will,” Merlin mumbles into the table, and Will cackles. It’s a very unbecoming cackle, Merlin thinks belligerently. It sounds like a sick goose.

“Just think,” Will says, because he cares absolutely nothing for the fragments of Merlin’s pride, “when you tell your grandchildren about how you met, you can talk all about how you climbed him like a tree in front of half the county.”

Merlin thinks about hitting Will, which probably won’t do much except make Will even more determined to fuck around with him, but then he thinks of something much, much worse, and all the feeling drops out of his stomach into a sudden yawning abyss.

“Oh Jesus,” he says, sitting up and staring at Will in horror. “I have to go into _work_ tomorrow.”

“No you don’t, Thursday’s your day off—”

Merlin waves this off impatiently. “Not _work_ work, that volunteer job at the station.”

Will looks nonplussed. “The station?”

“The _fire station_ , William.”

It’s sort of fascinating, Merlin thinks morosely, how the levels of unholy glee come over Will’s face in waves of realization. “The fire station,” Will says blissfully. “Oh, this is going to be _good_. I don’t need a television; your life is better than reality TV ever could be.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Merlin says again, and resigns himself to ignoring Will’s goddamned cackle for the rest of the night.

The thing is, Merlin thinks later, when Will has finally left him to sleep in peace on the lumpy couch, it’s not his fault for moving to this city. He’d moved because it’s where Will had gone, because he couldn’t see anything immediately terrible about living there, and because he hadn’t exactly had anything else to do with his life. He hadn’t had any way of knowing that the city had also contained the most annoying, shit-headed prick Merlin’s ever encountered, who also happens to be Merlin’s boss and who _also_ happens to be one of the hottest guys Merlin’s ever worked with. He’d had no idea, until he’d showed up on his first day and had been ordered around by this douchebag who’s clearly missed the whole Scientific Revolution boat and believed the sun and the earth and everything else in existence revolved around him.

(He’d had no idea that this tendency would only make the guy seem _hotter_ , either, but Merlin’s assiduously ignoring that inconvenient bit of information.)

Fuck, Merlin thinks miserably, punching the musty pillow Will had lent him into a shape that might be more comfortable, his life _sucks_.

*

Arthur leaves the morning meeting his father had called him into ready to break things, snapping at Percival and Morgana before slamming into the tiny closet that he uses as his office in the station and slumping into the chair and kicking the place where the fake wood is coming up off his desk and making it difficult to shut the drawers. A chunk of the plastic falls off, but Arthur feels no remorse because there is a firebug in his city, a fucking little _arsonist_. He supposes that statistically it was only a matter of time, but it still feels like a personal insult, an attack on his honor as a firefighter and deputy chief; the look his father had given him only heightens that.

“Fuck!” he yells, and kicks the desk again before sticking his head out of the office. “If the cops send Cendred and Sigan, tell them they can fuck right off!”

He can’t see anyone, but Morgana must still be close, because she yells back, “Tell them to fuck off yourself, dickhead!”

“Go to hell, Morgana!”

“You first!”

“Children, please,” Leon interrupts, coming into view. “If you’re done hurling weak insults, Arthur, Detective Smith is here to see you.”

“Oh,” Arthur says, caught off-guard, and takes a deep, calming breath. He can deal with Gwen, because even if their spectacular failure of a romance is still the talk of the town—Jesus, Arthur hates living in small towns pretending to be cities—she at least does not try to make him look like a sleazy maggot at every turn.

“I still resent your presence,” he tells her while he gets her a cup of the crappy coffee Lance had made during the night shift. “Two sugars?”

“As always,” she replies, and stretches her legs out under the dented table they have in the station. Arthur is mostly immune to her beauty by now, but she does look pretty in the blue of her uniform. He shakes the thought off and turns back to the coffee while she continues: “I know you don’t like this, Arthur, but we have to work together on this.”

“I know,” Arthur grumbles. “I’ve already had that lecture today. I don’t have to like it, though.”

She smiles at him and takes her coffee when he offers it. “Let’s make a deal. We work together to figure out who set that building on fire yesterday. I don’t tell you anything about how fires work or how to fight them, and you don’t tell me how to catch an arsonist before they set the whole city ablaze.”

“Would they really?” Arthur says, intrigued despite the nightmare headache that would bring.

Gwen shrugs. “Maybe. They tend to escalate as time goes on, go after bigger targets as they perfect their methods.”

“Shit,” Arthur says, with feeling, because that is definitely not something he wants to deal with.

“Exactly,” Gwen agrees. “So let’s get going, okay?”

By the time the meeting ends—and it takes an hour longer than necessary, what with everyone else at the station wandering by to offer their two cents; Christ, Arthur works with a bunch of goddamned armchair CSI experts, who knew—it’s past lunchtime, Elyan has gone to rescue Mrs. Sanders’ cat for the fourth time this week, and when Arthur goes outside to stretch his legs a little, the only true volunteer at what used to be the volunteer fire station before Uther took charge has finally showed up.

“Weren’t you supposed to be here at nine?” Arthur inquires casually, because he’s having a shit day, and if this doesn’t cure it at least he can get some enjoyment out of the guy’s expressions.

The man—Emrys, Merlin Emrys; Arthur remembers now—jumps and whirls around, tripping over his own feet and nearly falling over. Christ, this is going to be more fun than Arthur thought. “I’m a volunteer, you know,” Emrys says, frowning, “it’s not like you can dock my salary or anything,” and oh, that’s really putting Arthur in his place.

“I wrote your contract,” Arthur points out. “I can fire you any time I want. You have _oaths_ to the department, Emrys. Look at the state of the engine behind you. What if a fire was called in? Lives are at stake in the work we do here.”

Emrys rolls his eyes, which is just annoying. “I think you can go out and fight fires without having your damn truck washed.”

That’s true; Arthur doesn’t really care about polishing the paintwork, not when it comes to fires, but still. “That is not the point,” he informs Emrys. “The _point_ is that you have a job here, and if I think you’re slacking, I will kick your ass out of here so fast the wind will whistle in your ears.”

Emrys rolls his eyes again. Arthur wonders if his congenital idiocy is so strong it’s keeping him from developing a more varied repertoire. “Whatever,” Merlin tells Arthur, but he heads for the cabinet they keep the soap in, so Arthur counts it as a victory and goes back upstairs feeling marginally satisfied. They might have an arsonist in town, but at least Emrys has two trucks to scrub down all by himself, and then there is all the laundry to do, and that makes Arthur’s day just a little brighter.

The good mood lasts until he finishes up some paperwork and goes to check on Emrys’ progress—just to see how he’s doing, the boy is a born slacker if Arthur’s ever seen one—and finds Gwaine hanging all over him.

_What the hell_ , is Arthur’s first thought, because Gwaine moves fast but usually not _that_ fast, and an hour ago he’d still been mooning over the guy he’d rescued. Then Gwaine moves, and Arthur can see Emrys more clearly, and oh fucking hell, Emrys _is_ the man from the fire, and Gwaine is putting serious moves on him, leaning up close to Emrys, who’s somehow managed to get himself soaking wet while washing the trucks. There are suds on his cheek, Arthur notices darkly, and that just makes his black mood come back worse than before.

He considers yelling at Gwaine, but he can’t think of anything to say, so he ends up taking his mood home to nurse, because if a call comes in they can damned well deal with it on their own; see how far they get without him. He takes Annie with him, too, because he knows Emrys loves her but she loves Arthur more, and that gives him a petty sort of satisfaction.

Morgana calls him almost before the door has shut behind him.

“You’re pathetic,” she informs him, but Arthur is done putting up with this shit today.

“I am _not_ ,” he snaps, and hangs up. He doesn’t pick up when she calls back.

The next day, Arthur walks in on Lance and Gwaine deep in conversation.

“...you and Merlin,” Lance is saying.

“He’s playing hard to get,” Gwaine replies, sounding superior, and Arthur has to fight back the savage impulse to punch his teeth in—which, where did _that_ come from? “Give me time to work the magic: a little wining and dining first make the sex spectacular.”

“I pay you to be firemen,” Arthur interrupts, laying a heavy hand on each of their shoulders, “not gossipy old women. Don’t you have IAFF paperwork to do?”

Lance points to his finished pile of paperwork, neatly stacked, and Gwaine grumbles while he goes off to find a pen and wherever he’d left his own half-finished reports. Morgana, who’s come into the room just in time to overhear him, raises an eyebrow.

“Staking your claim?” she murmurs, brushing by Arthur. “How very alpha male of you.”

He jerks away from her in surprise, irritated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, nothing, I’m sure,” she replies, and goes off to lean over Lance’s shoulder and help him with the crossword he’s spreading over the table, leaving Arthur to ponder the disturbing thoughts that have just occurred to him.

Clearly, telling Lance and Gwaine off for gossiping is motivated purely by his concern for the disciplined running of his unit, but he wonders how his actions might be interpreted by everyone around him. Apparently Morgana has come away with her own completely incorrect conclusions; what if she isn’t the only one?

He wonders, in slow, cold horror, if everyone thinks he’s acting this way because he has a crush on Gwaine—or worse, on _Merlin_. It doesn’t even bear contemplation.

He locks himself in his office to mull the evidence over—it would explain Morgana’s comments, mostly, and the weird, sort of sympathetic looks Elyan has been giving him—and emerges an hour later with new determination. Somehow, the team has decided that ridicule and scorn add up to a lovesick Arthur Pendragon, which is obviously unacceptable. It’s time for a new tactic, and he knows exactly where to begin.

Merlin, it seems, has already left for the day—slacker, Arthur thinks disgustedly—but the next day when Merlin shows up, Arthur is ready. He’s carefully planned out his angle for maximum efficiency and impact, based on a half-heard conversation between Leon and Percival about Merlin the week before.

“Emrys,” he drawls, and allows himself a moment to luxuriate in the way Merlin twitches in surprise and nearly drops the carton of nails he’s holding. Starting a campaign of careful neutrality doesn’t mean he has to give up _all_ the perks of being a bastard. “I hear you’re a wizard with mechanical things.”

“Um,” says Merlin, giving Arthur a close, guarded look. “I guess?”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Arthur says. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Merlin asks when Arthur leads him around the corner away from the front of the station, down the side alley to Arthur’s back yard, and really, there’s no reason for him to have quite that level of suspicion in his voice, especially not when Annie comes bounding up to meet them, spotted tail wagging furiously.

“Here,” Arthur says, opening the gate he’d spent three weekends last summer reconfiguring his hedge for, and sighs when Merlin hesitates. “I don’t have all day, Emrys.”

Merlin walks forward obediently because it’s either move or get pushed over by Annie, who’s impatient when it comes to doors, but not without asking, “Are you leading me here to kill me?”

“If I were a serial killer, you’d have been dead weeks ago,” Arthur assures him, letting the gate shut behind them, and pushes Merlin toward the back wall of the station, the familiar dark brick of it rising from his carefully trimmed grass.

“You have a garden,” Merlin says, sounding stupidly surprised, and Arthur bites his tongue on all the things he wants to say to that. For the greater good, he reminds himself. For the purpose of destroying all of Morgana’s gleeful suppositions forever.

“Five points for basic observation,” he says. “Now, look. I want to know if there’s a way of rigging the alarm in the station so that when I’m in my house I’ll hear it too. Leon says you fixed the faulty wiring for the garage door; can you do something here?”

Merlin squints at the back door of the station, the narrow steps leading down from it to a curving path through Arthur’s vegetable garden, and then over to Arthur’s house. “I can try,” he says doubtfully, scratching behind Annie’s spotted ears. Arthur suppresses the irrational jealousy he feels at that while Merlin adds, “I might be able to do something with a wireless transmitter, so we don’t have to worry about actually running wires between the buildings...” He trails off, presumably in thought, so Arthur tells him:

“I have a running tab at the hardware store on Marshall Street; get whatever you need there,” and leaves Merlin to frown contemplatively at the roof over the back stoop.

*

Gwen helps Merlin move into his new apartment when he finds it, because she is a wonderful person and because after a month Merlin can’t bear one more crack from Will about Merlin’s unfortunate penchant for muscled firemen, so he practically begs her when he finds out she has a Saturday morning free. He could have asked a few of his coworkers for help, he supposes, but everyone at the restaurant has been giving him grief since Gwaine dropped by—ostensibly for sandwiches but really to flirt outrageously with Merlin over the register.

“Oh my God, why aren’t you hitting that left, right, and center?” Cedric had demanded, cornering Merlin once Gwaine was gone, the little bell on their door tinkling behind him as he sauntered off down the street.

“I,” Merlin had started. “Well, it’s... er. Complicated?”

“There is nothing complicated about that,” Freya had told him gravely. “If he were a dog he would have peed all over you to mark his claim; if you don’t tap that ass _immediately_ , you have some serious issues.”

“It’s Mr. March,” Cedric had burst in again. “Mr. _March_ , Merlin. Fuck, I’d be all over him if he was coming on that strong to me.”

“Well,” Merlin had said feebly, but there was no way he was going to say that he felt bad leading Gwaine on because Merlin had his eyes on an even finer ass—he knew better than that. It had been too good to hope that they’d leave the issue there; since then he’s been subjected to all sorts of lectures complete with picture diagrams about how, exactly, he is ruining his life forever by not hooking up with Gwaine, and after a few weeks he’d walked into the stock room to find it totally papered with the March page from the calendar.

It’s not that Merlin doesn’t think Gwaine is attractive—he’s seen the man with his shirt off, after all, and _holy hell_ , those abs—and some days he’s inches from agreeing, from going out with Gwaine and probably ending up quite happily in his bed with his legs in the air while Gwaine fucks him into blissful oblivion. But he’s pretty sure Gwaine, as crude as he is, is secretly a soft-hearted romantic along with being a fantastic fuck, which is why Merlin will never say yes, will keep putting Gwaine off until kingdom come. Saying yes will lead to the aforementioned fucking, which Merlin is not at all against, but it will also lead to second dates, and third ones, and all of a sudden Merlin will all but have a boyfriend, and it won’t be the one he wants.

It wouldn’t be a terrible thing—Merlin likes Gwaine, for the most part—but he’d _seen_ the look on Arthur’s face that first day, when Gwaine had come sliding up oozing sex to ask Merlin on a date. Maybe it means nothing, but Merlin’s pathetic enough to believe it might, so he’ll just continue being perpetually busy where Gwaine is concerned in the meager hopes of seeing another crack like that in Arthur’s composure.

Gwen gives him grief about it, too, but she’s not quite as pushy about it, which is why he’s asked her for help instead of anyone else. Also, they can park in the fire lane outside his new building without getting a ticket.

They get Merlin’s few possessions inside well before the rain that’s been threatening all morning settles in, and after they’ve more or less arranged the boxes and the foul old chairs he’d bought at a tag sale, Merlin gingerly sets about making coffee on his new stove.

“Honestly, it isn’t going to bite you,” Gwen says, laughing at him and taking over, and he pulls a long face, going for comedy to cover his guilt.

“You never know,” he tells her seriously, whispering as if the stove can overhear them.

“I guess not,” she agrees, and she’s still smiling but she sobers a little. “Everything can be a little dangerous sometimes.”

Merlin shifts, awkward, because he knows she’s thinking about her case—about _Merlin’s_ case, though she doesn’t know that—thinking about the oven fire that burned down his old building. Part of him feels terrible for causing her so much worry, but he can’t tell her about his magic, or how it explodes whenever Arthur is concerned, because there’s a much, much larger part of him that is entirely concerned with self-preservation. “Let’s just hope the great household appliance uprising is years away,” he says, falsely cheerful, and does a mad robot impression which makes her laugh again and effectively changes the subject for good.

They put ice in the coffee because it’s hot for late June, even with the rain that’s now pouring down outside: Channel 13’s meteorologists and the geezers down at O’Rourke’s have been promising a scorcher all spring, and it seems like it’s finally arriving in full force. Gwen helps Merlin tack up a few of his old concert posters and the map of Middle Earth—she teases him for that, but not nearly as much as she teases him for putting up the fire station’s calendar in his kitchen when he thinks she’s not looking. 

“That calendar is ridiculous,” she says, surveying it with her hands on her hips. June features Elyan, and Merlin supposes she’s allowed to disapprove of her brother clad in nearly nothing but his boots.

“Yes,” Merlin agrees, but neither of them makes a move to take it down. The calendar, Merlin thinks dryly, has that power.

Merlin’s moved on to sorting through his books when Gwen looks at her watch and sighs, leaving the box of Merlin’s few battered pots and pans half-unpacked. “Sorry Merlin, I have to go. We’re investigating a pair of fires downtown; I have to meet Arthur at the station to go over some information.”

Merlin waves her out with a smile which disappears as soon as he shuts the door behind her. He watches her dash through the rain to her car before sagging slowly down the wall to sit on the floor, dismally surveying the mess scattered around him. Merlin doesn’t know anything about the fires she’s talking about, doesn’t know how many fires he’s being investigated for without anyone knowing it’s him, but he’s pretty sure the number doesn’t include the fire he’d accidentally started behind Will’s sofa when he’d been—well, when Will was out—or the one in the fire station microwave, because no one knows about those.

Actually, Merlin amends, everyone at the station knows about the last one, along with the entirety of Mrs. Sweeney’s first grade class, who’d been on a field trip at the time. He’d confessed to it, actually, but everyone had misunderstood him to mean that he was just incompetent with microwaves.

“Really, Merlin,” Arthur had said, surveying the mess afterward while the kids and Mrs. Sweeney all goggled at them from the door. “You should be required to sit through a seminar before coming back here. Tinfoil and microwaves _never, ever_ mix.”

“I,” Merlin had started feebly, but Arthur had sort of ruffled his hair and turned back to the class with a lecture on always being careful and parental supervision in the kitchen, and what was Merlin supposed to say, really?

_Sorry_ , he’d thought to Arthur’s back, perhaps a trifle more acerbically than necessary. _But when you show that clunky old truck off to kids and lift them up to the driver’s seat so they can honk the horn with your hat on while you roll around in the grass with your Dalmatian and your worn t-shirt rides up in the back, sometimes my magic makes things explode._

At least the tinfoil had been a good cover story, he comforts himself, thinking back on it while he listens to the rain patter on his windows, though it’s no real comfort at all. 

The problem boils down to the fact that Merlin thinks Arthur is actually starting to _respect_ him, of all things. He’s still a prick, albeit an attractive one, but he’s started to become noticeably less of a bastard where Merlin is concerned, especially since Merlin rigged the alarm in Arthur’s house. It’s magic—of course it’s magic, Merlin knows next to nothing about anything with wires or screws or anything—but as far as Arthur is concerned, it’s a clever little bit of wireless genius. Even when it had malfunctioned after the microwave disaster, Arthur had been impressed that it had actually _worked_ , and doubly so that Merlin had been able to fix it: not very difficult, in the end, once Merlin had figured out that the magic had been going haywire because he had caused the fire in the first place. Apparently his magic was becoming susceptible to Arthur in new and exciting ways.

Merlin feels a little bit bad about the lie, but not very much, since it’s apparently earned him Arthur’s grudging respect and had given him a little glimpse of Arthur away from his role of Asshole Supervisor. 

It had taken Merlin nearly a week to work out just how he was going to make the transmitter work without over-stretching the bounds of believable reality: a week of Arthur hanging around and making pointless suggestions and offering Merlin homemade lemonade, of all things. They’d talked about the Pats and the Celtics and whether or not the Rangers had a prayer at anything that year, and Arthur had laughed more than Merlin had thought possible, lounging around his house in bare feet, looking relaxed and casually gorgeous and altogether far too fuckable

Merlin had exerted all of his not inconsiderable willpower and had barely managed to resist jumping Arthur’s bones, though he’s still sure he would have failed if Arthur hadn’t apparently felt convinced he had to keep being a prick once in a while, just to remind himself he could. (It was perfectly reasonable for Merlin to ask when the next Bruins’ game was at Fenway; there had been no need for Arthur to look quite so wounded or go off on quite such a vicious tangent. Merlin’s perfectly happy to not be a part of the damn Red Sox _nation_ , whatever _that_ is. He’d known better not to share that thought, at least, and gradually Arthur had settled down again, after at least five different threats to drag Merlin to a game against his will.)

Merlin lets his head thunk back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. In the end it doesn’t matter how many pictures of Gwaine his coworkers put up, or how often Will tells him he should get out more, should go to the city and get it all out of his system in one grand weekend full of tequila shots and ill-advised life choices. He’s found out that Arthur is human after all under all the armor, human enough to smile and wrestle with Annie and surprise Merlin with small moments of genuine warmth. Merlin’s a lost cause completely.

“I don’t need this, you know,” he tells the ceiling loudly, but no one replies, and he’s left to order take-out spaghetti for one from the Italian place down the street and crawl onto his mattress for another night of restless sleep.

Despite the shambles he’s made of himself, of his life, he manages to keep things under control, for the most part. He goes to work and endures his coworkers’ attempts at making him see the light which apparently shines like a beacon out of Gwaine’s ass, and twice a week he goes to the station, where somehow his duties have expanded to weeding Arthur’s garden, which he complains about until he realizes Arthur’s going to help when he’s not on shift.

“You’re going to get sunburned,” Merlin manages the first time Arthur takes his shirt off, because the sun is hot and high and Merlin might have SPF 50 smeared over every inch of his body but he can still feel the tips of his ears burning cherry red. 

“You can do my back,” Arthur says, tossing Merlin a tube of sunscreen with a grin, and Merlin would usually have a comeback to that level of egregious fake-flirting, but his tongue has glued itself to the roof of his bone-dry mouth. The lotion goes on easily, sliding over Arthur’s smooth skin, and Jesus Christ, Merlin can feel the muscles moving under his hand, and he has to fake a phone call when he’s done so he can escape and try to remember how to breathe.

A pile of trash bursts into sudden flame when he ducks out the back gate into the alley, but it stays small and Merlin’s able to kick dirt over it until it stops.

“Everything alright?” Arthur asks when Merlin comes back, marginally more composed.

“Yeah,” Merlin lies, kneeling down two rows away from where Arthur is thinning the beets. “My mother; she forgets the time difference.” 

Arthur nods and bends back to work, and after a moment Merlin turns away as well, ripping weeds out from around the lettuce with a particular focused vehemence.

“Where does she live, then?” Arthur asks after they’ve both reached the end of their second row. “Your mother?”

Merlin looks at him, startled at the interest. “Wales,” he answers, and Arthur looks at him speculatively.

“You don’t have much of an accent.”

“Not anymore,” Merlin replies. “I used to.”

“My father still does,” Arthur says, toying with a pulled weed he’s picked out of the bucket they’ll take over to the compost pile when it’s filled. “Have you met him?” Merlin shakes his head; he’s only seen the elder Pendragon in passing. Uther may be nominally the fire chief, but almost all his time is tied up in the businesses he has along the river and the waterfront; Arthur takes care of running the station. “We moved here after my mother died; I must have been four or five at the time.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, tentative, and takes the coward’s way out of the conversation, because there is no way he is prepared to talk about Arthur’s dead mother, not when Arthur looks quietly miserable just mentioning it. “I... so you moved here from Wales?”

It’s Arthur’s turn to look startled. “Oh, sorry, no; near Brighton. I’m just so used to everyone here thinking it’s all the same place.”

Merlin tries a smile. “No one knows anything about geography anymore,” he agrees, and feels gratified when Arthur smiles back.

“Three more rows before lunch?” Arthur asks, straightening and brushing some of the dirt off his hands, and Merlin nods, setting back to work and finding a semblance of calm in the rote work of weeding. He has this under control. Arthur may be slowly warming to Merlin, slowly sharing bits of his life and past with Merlin alone, but Merlin is going to be strong. He’ll resist, because if he gives in he isn’t sure the whole city won’t go up in smoke. 

Of course, he thinks in despair a day later, he hadn’t counted on July.

He’s always known that July follows June, had remembered in an abstract sort of way that July meant Arthur’s picture everywhere the station’s calendar is posted; he just hadn’t counted on just how enormous a problem that would turn out to be. 

Granted, he hadn’t known exactly what Arthur as Mr. July had entailed. God. He nearly has a heart attack when he absently changes the calendar page in his kitchen a few days into the month and tacks it back up. It’s Arthur, mostly naked and sweaty and wearing nothing but his hat in a strategic place, a hose wrapped over one shoulder and looking murderously pissed off, and fuck, Merlin thinks dazedly, staring, this is going to be a _giant_ problem.

It’s then that the grease from his bacon sandwiches from the night before, which he’d drained into an old soup can and left on the counter for lack of anything else to do with it, explodes into flames.

He puts the fire out and takes the calendar down, stowing it firmly away under a pile of newspapers before going to work, and tells himself that since now he knows what to expect, it’ll be a piece of cake for the rest of the month.

And it is, at first. All morning during the rush, he smiles at the locals speculating on the calendar and Arthur and whether or not he’ll ever get back with Gwen, and points tourists toward the best shops and beaches after serving them coffee and croissants, and he doesn’t once feel the itch in the back of his mind that means his magic is about to go haywire. He lasts most of the afternoon, too, until there’s a lull in business and Freya chucks a cucumber at him and tells him to go restock the sugar packets on the tables. 

He isn’t thinking about it, honestly; he’d forgotten Cedric had tacked the calendar up in the stock room when a few too many people had complained about it being in pride of place behind the register. He grabs the sugar and turns around, not remembering until he sees the calendar, and by then it’s far too late. 

In a way, he thinks miserably, a blanket draped over his shoulders where he’s sitting kicking his heels in the parking lot watching all the flashing lights while everyone runs around making sure the fire is completely out, it could have been worse. The whole building could have been destroyed. They could have had customers when the alarm went off. At least the sprinkler system worked; it’s still working, he notices, soaking everything and everyone until Arthur roars for someone to shut it off because they don’t need to drain the entire river, for fuck’s sake.

Also, his coworkers have left off giving him a hard time about Gwaine to hit shamelessly on Leon, who waves his left hand around feebly and tries to escape, which only encourages them. Merlin sips the bottle of water someone had handed him and watches their antics with deep amusement until Arthur walks up to him.

“Hey, you alright?” Arthur asks, and Merlin gulps down everything he wants to say, settling instead on:

“Yeah, fine.”

Arthur nods and clears his throat, gruff. He’s still wearing all of his equipment, Merlin thinks helplessly. He looks competent and in charge, and Merlin is going to have a serious problem if Arthur doesn’t leave _right away_.

“Come on, then,” Arthur says. “The police think there’s something funny about this fire; I need you to show me where it started.”

“Okay,” Merlin agrees, instead of saying anything sensible, and follows Arthur inside. The building isn’t badly damaged, just a little scorched in places and completely waterlogged. “It was in there,” he says, pointing to the stock room and wondering how the hell he’s going to sell this. He has no idea how fires work, but he knows that Arthur has been studying them probably from the cradle.

“Where, exactly?” Arthur asks, and Merlin follows him hopelessly into the room. 

“There,” he replies, pointing to the corner that seems the most damaged. He thinks the fire started there; he’d been too busy panicking at the time to really notice.

“Hmm,” says Arthur, crouching down to sift some of the debris through his gloved fingers. Merlin closes his eyes and tries to take steadying breath while Arthur makes thinking noises and mutters to himself. Merlin thinks he catches the words _accelerant_ and _the fuck?_ , and tries not to listen much after that.

“Right,” Arthur says at last, standing up and brushing his hands off before crossing his arms. There’s a terrible frown on his face, and all the feeling leaves Merlin’s fingers. _Shit_ , he thinks wildly. Arthur knows. He knows just from looking at bits of burned sugar and scorch marks that Merlin started this fire, started all the fires, and he’s going to call Gwen and have the cops drag Merlin away...

Merlin’s seconds from falling to his knees and confessing the whole thing when Arthur continues: “I hope you don’t think this means I’m letting you get away with not showing up tomorrow. You’re still coming in to polish everything before the parade.”

The relief is overwhelming; Merlin’s left knee is trembling, and he balances on one foot to hide it. He feels a little giddy. Arthur’s still giving Merlin a look that says he might not have pushed Merlin into lockers when they were adolescents, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still want to if Merlin dares say anything, and God, that combined with the way Arthur’s voice goes a little deeper when he says _polish everything_ makes Merlin’s mind go terrible, filthy places, and suddenly there’s something else on fire behind Arthur.

Arthur’s still talking. “We absolutely cannot take the engine out unless it’s spotless, so you had better—”

“Arthur,” Merlin croaks, watching the flames lick higher up the wall, hungrier than they had been before. Arthur doesn’t pay attention.

“—and I mean really shining, don’t think I haven’t noticed the spots you’ve been leaving when—”

“Arthur,” Merlin says, more urgently this time, while the fire creeps closer to where they keep the jugs of vegetable oil, and Arthur must pick up on something in Merlin’s voice, because he turns around to look behind him.

The next few seconds are jumbled together for Merlin: Arthur’s swearing, a long string of _goddamned fucking shit fuck fuck_ move _, Merlin, goddamn you move_ before slinging Merlin up onto his shoulder when he realizes Merlin’s too frozen with horror to move and running them both out of there as the whole building goes up behind them.

Merlin looks up at Arthur, terrified, after they’re safely outside and Arthur’s set him down, because how can Arthur not know now? But Arthur is giving him an odd, curious look, and Merlin thinks maybe—maybe—in a total daze as the trembling in his knee spreads through his chest into his arms, but then Arthur’s being called away and the moment’s gone. Merlin gets handed from medic to medic until he’s back where he started, the same blanket around his shoulders, looking at the wreck of where he used to work.

God, he thinks bitterly, he _hates_ his life.

*

Arthur hates life today for many reasons, the chief one being that _he_ is the one driving the ancient fire truck which is far too old to have air conditioning down Main Street while the thermometer climbs steadily toward the forecasted blazing heat and crowds of people scream and wave at him. He clenches his teeth and waves back, and once in a while mops his forehead with a handkerchief that had been soaking wet before he’d even turned the corner on Jefferson.

He has no business being here, Arthur decides. He’s _English_ , even if he has been living here practically his entire life. He’s not supposed to celebrate the anniversary of the colonies revolting against their rightful king. At least Annie is happy, he thinks, a little resentfully, glancing over at where she’s standing in the seat next to him, her head out the window. She’s barking joyfully at everyone because despite all her training she’s still the most excitable being on the planet, and he’s sure if she wags her tail any harder she’ll waggle her entire spotted bottom off. 

There’s sweat running down his temples, and he wipes his face and the back of his neck with the handkerchief again. He isn’t actually sure where the kerchief came from: it’s blue and looks hand-woven. It definitely doesn’t belong to any of his men, which leaves a possibility Arthur isn’t thinking about.

Arthur is not thinking about Merlin, about how Arthur had come into the station that morning after his run to check on the engine and Merlin had already been there, polishing away in gym shorts without his shirt on because it was six in the morning and hot as hell already. Arthur had stopped and stuttered something, fled to the safety of his own house, because _shit_ , he had not been prepared at all for how good Merlin looks without his shirt off, all sleek skin and wiry muscle lying close along the bone. Fuck, Arthur thinks, Merlin has no right to look so fit, not when he seems to subsist mostly on doughnuts and peanut butter. Even so... but _no_ , Arthur is forgetting all of that, isn’t thinking about how Merlin had turned when Arthur knocked into a stray chair, sending it toppling, and blushed scarlet before they both mutually tried to mumble excuses and run away. 

He is also erasing all memory of the night before, at the fire, when Merlin had looked up at him with huge, terrified eyes, and Arthur had thought—had almost... but no, that’s already gone from his thoughts, has no place lurking around in his head.

Arthur shakes himself and starts paying attention to the parade again. The Johnsons’ kids are leaning over the makeshift barricade set up along the side of the street, waving at him, and he honks the horn, waving back. It’s the neighborly thing to do; besides, it sends them into paroxysms of delight and dampens down his foul mood a bit. Annie’s still barking out the window, and at first he assumes she’s barking at the kids—they’ve been taking her across the street to play catch on the baseball field or swim in the river all summer—and doesn’t realize the truth until too late, when the Sullivans’ damned cat darts out into the street. 

Annie’s out the window after it before Arthur can grab her collar—she hates the cat, which is in most cases a perfectly reasonable reaction as the cat is an ugly, evil bastard who kills chipmunks and the finches who come to Arthur’s feeder, but not right _now_ , not in a moving vehicle with more moving vehicles everywhere around, all their drivers concentrating too much on waving to notice a little white and black spotted dog under the wheels—and _shit_ , shit, what the _fuck_ , Annie, he thinks a little hysterically as he slams on the brakes. It isn’t as dramatic as he wants it to be, since the truck is probably only doing about five miles per hour, and he’s lost sight of her, shit, where _is_ she, what if she runs off and can’t find her way home? He tries to take a deep breath, to calm himself, because Annie is smarter than the box of rocks he usually compares her to, but his heart is screaming against his ribs, and the air in his lungs is painfully sharp.

For all his posturing, for all the fuss he’d kicked up when Annie had first started showing up at the station and refused to go away, all tiny puppy bones and dirty, matted fur, he loves her: loves her in a deep, abiding sort of way, even when she rolls in dead fish when he takes her for walks on the rocky beach and makes his car smell for years; even when she sticks her cold, wet nose in his ear at six in the morning on Saturdays and licks his face; even when she howls and knocks over glasses and books and family heirlooms with her tail; and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he doesn’t have her to come home to, if he doesn’t have her trotting solid and steady at his side.

He’s nearly about to climb out of the engine—to hell with the parade—when Merlin is there in the crowd, apparently out of nowhere, grabbing Annie by the scruff of her neck and holding her back while the cat goes streaking off to who knows where. Arthur eases back in the seat, letting the dark dread drain out of him, and looks at Merlin as he shifts the truck back into gear. Merlin gives him a salute and a half smile, and Arthur nods back, accelerating to catch up with the beribboned VFW float in front of him. 

The rest of the parade passes uneventfully. Arthur is bored almost to tears by the time he gets back to the station, which is the only reason he can think of for what happens after he’s parked and slipped out of the garage before anyone sees him.

Merlin’s waiting on his back stoop, watching Annie investigate the corner of the yard where Arthur’s started stacking wood. The chipmunks have been using the pile as a base to tease her, slowly driving her nuts until the woodpile is about the only thing she pays attention to in the backyard. 

“Hey,” Merlin says, standing up when Arthur comes in through the gate. “I brought Annie back.”

“Thanks,” Arthur replies, and they stand looking at each other for a moment, Merlin bringing one hand up to grip awkwardly at his other elbow. “Do you want to,” Arthur says impulsively, “do you want to come in?”

“I,” says Merlin, looking startled. “Sure. Yes. I’d like that.”

“Come on then,” Arthur says, and unlocks the door. Merlin’s been in the back hall before, hooking up the wireless transmitter for the station alarm and then fixing it when it had _kept ringing_ long after Merlin’s microwave fiasco, but Arthur’s never had him in the house properly before; he is inexplicably a little bit nervous. “Coffee?” he asks, to cover the feeling up, and Merlin nods.

Arthur fiddles with the beans and the grinder while Merlin wanders around looking at things, tripping over Annie and touching picture frames and the colorful runner on the table that had belonged to Arthur’s mother. He thinks it should feel invasive, Merlin so obviously poking into Arthur’s life, but instead it feels... comfortable, like Merlin belongs in Arthur’s kitchen, peering at the photos up on the butter-yellow walls. So instead of saying anything, he just watches Merlin, leans against the counter while the water heats and studies the way Merlin moves, the lean stretch of him and the absent way he tucks in his elbows, like he’s used to banging into things.

He does interrupt when Merlin strays to the far side of the sofa, toward the television. There are some things Arthur isn’t quite willing to share yet, no matter how good Merlin looks in his worn Batman t-shirt and baggy shorts. “How do you take your coffee?”

Merlin turns around and comes back into the kitchen. “Cream and sugar,” he answers while Arthur pours. “Do you have any ice cubes?”

“Ice cubes?” Arthur asks, confused, handing Merlin one of the mugs. “What for?”

“For the coffee,” Merlin says, as if it’s obvious, tucking the fingers of one hand around the dark crimson smoothness of the cup and reaching for the sugar bowl Arthur’s holding out with the other.

“Ice and coffee?”

Merlin gives him a look, like he thinks Arthur is abnormally slow on the uptake. “Iced coffee? Ever heard of it?”

“Iced coffee?” And Arthur can’t help but laugh at that, surprised and delighted with it, because of _course_ , of course Merlin would just be as weird in this as he is with everything else. “That is not what normal people do,” he informs Merlin, but he opens the freezer and pulls out an ice tray anyway. “Where do you even get these ideas?”

Merlin adopts an injured expression. “Isn’t that exactly what iced coffee _is_?” he asks, fishing three ice cubes out and dropping them one by one into his cup. “Just without all the frills.”

“You are such a freak,” Arthur tells him, but he can feel the smile still stretching embarrassingly broad across his face.

“Why do you live here?” Merlin asks, sitting when Arthur gestures at the table, and when Arthur raises an eyebrow in question, he clarifies: “I mean, why do you live right here, by the station? Do you have to, because you’re the second in command or something?”

Arthur shakes his head. “The house was historically the fire chief’s,” he tells Merlin. “It was sold before my father took the post, though; the station needed the money. I bought it when it went back on the market.” He shrugs. “I like it; it’s a good house. And I don’t have to drive to work.” He doesn’t mention that the elegant house on Court Street Uther had bought and restored had never felt like a home, that he’d bought and painted this house himself to get away. The white clapboards have a warmth, a cheeriness Uther’s marble floors will never capture.

“Such a good citizen, fighting fires _and_ saving the environment,” Merlin jokes, poking Arthur’s arm with his finger, and Arthur makes a face.

They sit at the table for what might be hours, Merlin kicking Arthur’s shins when Arthur teases him and grinning, and Arthur feels something warm and huge stirring to wakefulness behind his lungs. It feels weirdly natural to be sitting here with Merlin, not worrying about anything in particular while their coffee cools and the breeze comes in the open windows, Annie gnawing on a tennis ball under their feet. Arthur won’t tell anyone this, ever, but he thinks he could sit here forever, content in Merlin’s company.

He allows the feeling to lull him into a quiet tranquility so secure that when Merlin asks: “Who’s the girl in the picture? The one across from the TV, with the silver frame and the candle?” Arthur begins answering before he thinks about it, and then it’s too late to stop.

“Her name was Lydia,” Arthur says, focusing carefully on the empty mug in his hands. “She was twelve.” She’d been on the elementary school basketball team, a middling athlete but a star pupil. She’d won an award from the local library for writing the year before; she’d told her teachers she wanted to be a journalist.

She hadn’t been able to get out of the house without her wheelchair when a space heater set the curtains in her brother’s room alight.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, reaching a hand out, palm flat down on the table. Arthur starts; he hadn’t realized how long the silence had stretched on. “You don’t have to tell me if you—”

“No,” Arthur interrupts, because in some way... in some way he wants to tell Merlin, wants Merlin to know. “There was a fire. We thought we had it under control, thought the house was empty. It was—her parents, they couldn’t find her. My father wouldn’t... I went back in. She was in the hospital for a week.”

Burns, the doctors had said; those he’d seen, carrying her as the house crashed down in pieces around him, but it had been the smoke that killed her.

Merlin’s looking at him with something like agony in his eyes, his shoulders bent forward and his lips just slightly parted.

“They invited me to the funeral,” Arthur finishes. “I couldn’t go. I bring her flowers every now and then.” She had been so small in his arms, like a tiny bird too frightened to move, all hollow bones and broken wings.

“Oh, Arthur,” Merlin whispers, and from anyone else the tone would have pushed Arthur over the edge into anger, back to the blind fury he’d lived with for so long after that day, but from Merlin it fits. It quiets the hungry darkness that still roars in Arthur’s ears when he thinks about it, and when Merlin slides his hand over to cover Arthur’s, Arthur doesn’t pull away. He turns his hand until his palm is pressed against Merlin’s, lets his fingertips rest against Merlin’s wrist and bends his head, waiting until the weight of it all lifts again.

He clears his throat once he thinks he can try talking again. “Sorry,” he says, awkward, and Merlin shakes his head.

“You shouldn’t be,” he tells Arthur firmly. “It wasn’t your fault. And I did ask.”

“Right,” Arthur says, clearing his throat again to get rid of the threatening lump, and casts about for a change of subject. “Er,” he remembers belatedly. “Do you want a cookie?”

Merlin straightens, pulling back, and Arthur is _not_ disappointed when Merlin lets go of his hand. “A cookie?” he asks Arthur dubiously. “Did you make them?”

“I am a perfectly capable cook,” Arthur huffs, getting up to grab the tin. “But no, these are from Delia—Mrs. Henderson,” he clarifies when Merlin purses his lips in suspicion. “From down the road?”

“I’ve done yard work for her,” Merlin says. “She’s never made _me_ cookies.”

“I, uh,” Arthur says, wondering if he should reveal this, “I have blueberry pie, too, if you want it? From Gladys Willard.” Last week it had been strawberry rhubarb, but he isn’t going to say that to Merlin, not when _that_ particular expression is growing on Merlin’s face. It isn’t Arthur’s fault the Ladies’ Auxiliary at the Congregational church around the corner has all but adopted him; he doesn’t even _go_ to church anymore.

Merlin takes a handful of the little ginger snaps and inspects them. “I see,” he says, in a tone which implies all sorts of terribly inappropriate things. “And do they bake all of this purely out of the kindness of their hearts? What do they get in return, these women? Should I be talking with Gwen about your habits regarding feeling up old ladies?”

“What?” Arthur squawks, outraged. “Merlin, that is—you are— _no_! Absolutely not!”

“You never know these days,” Merlin says, entirely too cheerfully. “I would never judge you for your tastes—well, maybe a little—”

“This is my house,” Arthur threatens. “I can throw you out any time I want.”

Merlin waves this away loftily. “It’s only what you get for being so irresistible, I guess,” he comments, leaning back in the chair, and there’s a quiet moment that passes before either of them really thinks about those words.

Merlin freezes first, almost imperceptively, and Arthur can’t look away from him. There’s a buzzing in his ears and fingers, an itchy thrumming running along his skin. Merlin moves slowly, so slowly, his hands coming up to cling tightly to the mug, but his eyes dart around the room, settling on everything but Arthur. Arthur waits, stares and stares at Merlin, at the way his breath hitches in his throat when he finally meets Arthur’s gaze.

“Merlin,” Arthur starts, hushed, his voice rasping unexpectedly in his throat—but before he can say anything more, before he can think of anything to say, the alarm is going off, wailing loud and clear from the back hall where Merlin’s transmitter is and fainter from the station itself.

“Arthur,” Merlin says, looking pale and more than a little bit ill, and Arthur wants to know why but now his cell phone is ringing: it’s Morgana, which means this has to be serious, that Arthur has to be in the station _now_.

Arthur’s already halfway to the door, trying to remember who’s on shift today. “I’m sorry,” he tells Merlin, hesitating briefly before he leaves. He isn’t sure exactly what he’s apologizing for, only that Merlin’s followed him to the back door, standing behind Arthur with a lost expression, and it seems like it’s wide enough to describe whatever Arthur’s feeling. “Just...” His cell phone rings again, and he loses the thought. “Lock the doors when you leave?”

Merlin nods, mute, and Arthur runs out of the house, pounding through his garden and up the stairs to the station before he can look back and see Merlin framed by the doorway flowers and looking far too much at home in Arthur’s house. 

*

Merlin is ready to jump off the bridge in town and hope that if the height doesn’t kill him, the falls downriver will. He knows exactly what’s on fire, knows the alarm and Arthur’s cell phone are ringing because apparently Merlin’s magic is ranging further afield, far enough to set three of the little shops Uther owns along the waterfront blazing.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he hisses, because he had _not_ given permission for the magic to get any more adventurous: it’s _his_ magic, for Christ’s sake, shouldn’t he have control over it? Except it’s becoming clearer and clearer that he doesn’t have control, at least not over this bit, which seems determined to make him cockblock himself until he is an old and angry man.

He retraces his steps until he’s standing in the kitchen staring belligerently at the mugs still standing on the table. There had been something there—Arthur had been giving him a long, strange look, and Merlin hadn’t been able to think, not with every particle of his being screaming that maybe this was it, this was what he’d been waiting for... But there’s no use thinking about it now, not with the moment broken in such a spectacular fashion. 

He knows he should leave, knows he’s invading Arthur’s privacy a little by staying, but he doesn’t want to leave yet, wants to indulge in Arthur a little longer. 

The dishes are a valid enough reason to stay, he figures, and he takes his time with them, soaping them thoroughly while he stares out the small window over the sink. There’s a lacy white curtain along the top of it. It doesn’t seem like something Arthur would think of, and Merlin wonders if Gwen or Morgana put it there. It fits the house, fits the homey slantedness of it, the old wooden floors which are scarred and buckled under their shine. It has a character apart, this house, and Merlin can see why Arthur wanted to live here: he probably bellows at the ancient pipes and insulation and threatens to tear it down no matter how many protected lists the historical society puts it on, but secretly he must love it, the way none of the corners are a perfect ninety degrees.

It’s too easy to slip from those musings into a further fantasy: one in which Merlin washes dishes in this sink every day, where he’s making guacamole or maybe a casserole on the huge antique range when Arthur comes home and kisses him, sweet and lingering, before going out to burn burgers on the grill—he has seen Arthur’s grill prowess, he knows Arthur thinks anything cooked over fire should be either still-bleeding or charred—where Merlin isn’t afraid to wander through the rooms exploring because they’re his rooms too, his things nestled in next to Arthur’s, his shoes next to Arthur’s at the door and in the closet. Merlin knows it’s impossible, knows the odds of Arthur wanting Merlin—if he even wants men at all—are slim to nil, but it’s hard, so hard to leave that imagined place behind.

In the end he does what he’s supposed to, locks the doors behind him and gives the house one last look before he sets off toward his own empty apartment, which seems echoing and too-large now when he closes the door, despite being smaller than Arthur’s sitting room. He pulls a popsicle out of the freezer and goes to bed despite the sun still in the sky, curling up on his side and ignoring the way the popsicle drips strawberry stains onto his sheets.

*

Arthur is more pissed off than usual—what the fuck, _three_ fires at once?—and his mood doesn’t improve when Odin and Cendred show up with their own companies. He knows why Uther called them in, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it, and to hell with Morgana and all her talk of uniting into a greater, more powerful force. Arthur doesn’t need a more powerful force: his unit does superbly on its own. There’s no need to call in the entire county anytime someone burns popcorn.

It only gets worse when Uther summons him later that evening.

“Come in,” Uther calls when Arthur raps on the door of his study. He hadn’t bothered ringing the front bell: the housekeeper’s probably off for the holiday and Uther has never once answered his own doorbell. There’s a reason Arthur kept the key to his father’s house.

He knows better than to sit and make himself comfortable, and Uther proves him right. “We’ve found the arsonist.”

“You have a suspect?” Arthur asks, and maybe he’s misjudged his father, because this is _fantastic_ news. He wonders who it is; he has his own suspicions, of course, it’ll be interesting to see whether or not—

“A snake in our own garden,” Uther says in satisfaction, and Arthur has only a minute to stiffen in terrible, shocked anticipation before his father adds: “the volunteer, Merlin Emrys.”

Arthur blinks, and fights the urge to laugh. “ _Merlin_?” he says incredulously. “Really? I doubt Merlin can rub two sticks together, let alone—”

“The two biggest fires were in his apartment building and his workplace,” Uther points out, as if that’s evidence enough to convict him.

“He _works_ for us,” Arthur replies. “Isn’t that a little odd in an arsonist?”

Uther leans back in his chair, the old leather creaking slightly. “Not at all. Say he wanted to learn how we fight fires, so that he might build a bigger, more destructive one. Say he wanted to keep track of how much we knew or suspected. I think that makes our station the very best place to work for him.”

Arthur barely resists crossing his arms: a defensive move, when he can’t afford to let his father know just how defensive he feels. “Who sets their _own apartment_ on fire?”

“An arsonist doesn’t need a reason,” Uther says, shrugging, and Arthur can read in the movement exactly how little Uther cares about Merlin as a person—all that matters to his father is results, is the fact that they have a suspect and if Uther gets his way the suspect will be put away for a long time with only the barest courtesies paid to due process. “And we know he had arguments with his landlord.”

Arthur won’t believe it—doesn’t want to believe it—but he keeps his trump card quiet. Merlin can’t have been anywhere near the shops today, not in between saving Annie and spending the afternoon at Arthur’s house. That’s private, that’s not for public knowledge yet. Arthur hasn’t even had a chance to open the memories and look at them himself; he doesn’t want other people—his father in particular—pawing through them and destroying the quiet warmth they’re resting in.

“You’ll stay for dinner,” his father remarks; it isn’t a question.

“Of course,” Arthur replies, knowing the conversation is over, and lets his father lead the way into the dining room.

The next day is the annual cookout at the station. They learned years ago never to have it on the Fourth itself, because there are always illegal fireworks and faulty barbeques setting things ablaze; it’s become tradition to have it the Saturday after. Arthur’s been out in the lot on the far side of his house nearly since sunrise, getting everything ready and roping more people into helping with the tents and tables and decorations as they trickle in. Morgana arrives midmorning with her new grill in the back of her pickup truck—a great gleaming monstrosity of a thing which looks like it could cook enough burgers for the whole city—and Arthur is too busy recruiting whoever he can lay hands on to haul it into place to notice anything else around him.

It isn’t until Morgana’s begun handing out the first hamburgers that Arthur catches sight of Merlin, and his gut gives a disagreeable wriggle. It’s obvious something’s wrong, because Merlin is not nearly himself. He’s quiet and drawn in, huddled in a chair apart from everyone else, looking miserable. Arthur thinks about his father, thinks about the efficiency that has led to countless plaques and carefully polished awards lined up next to each other over the mantles and up the stairs of Uther’s house, marching inexorably forward toward progress. 

Merlin is wearing worn cargo shorts with holes in them and a white t-shirt with a picture of a bicycle on it that says _Ceci n’est pas une bicyclette_ , which Arthur figures is French for _I am a harmless idiot_ ; this, Arthur thinks, _this_ is supposed to be the hardened criminal setting fires? He wonders if Merlin’s already been brought in for examining, if they sat him in a cold concrete room and questioned him all morning, and the thought of it sends a small, quiet fury rolling up hot from the palms of Arthur’s hands and the soles of his feet.

His feet are moving before he thinks about it, pointing him to where Merlin is sitting, but it takes him a minute to wend his way through everyone and by the time he breaks through all the kids and boyfriends and wives and friends Gwaine is already there, has already pulled a chair up close and is leaning in toward Merlin, their knees and foreheads nearly touching, equal sides of a triangle.

Arthur stops, turns away, his mind smooth and blank, and goes to convince Morgana to give him control of the grill.

“No,” she tells him firmly, flipping a veggie burger before yelling at Leon to bring her more hot dog buns.

“Please?” he tries, but she only gives him a stern, disapproving look.

“There are impressionable children here,” she says. “I don’t want a repeat of the Stonington debacle.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Arthur sulks, “and besides, the bird was fine in the end.” Morgana ignores him, and he’s left to hang around behind the grill out of the way of the smoke while he drinks a beer and nurses his grudge—a cause only furthered by the extraordinarily uncomfortable plastic chairs Uther had somehow arranged for the day.

He sits there, eating what Morgana hands him, until Gwaine pulls up a seat next to him with a friendly nod. Arthur doesn’t really want to talk to Gwaine, but he can’t leave without being rude, so they sit together and watch Leon be accosted by teenagers for a while.

“Maybe we should help him out,” Arthur remarks while Leon is hanging onto his wife with one hand, a plate of potato salad in the other, and trying to hide behind both of them while a team of underage devotees maneuvers in a determined effort to grab his ass.

“Nah,” Gwaine says. “Serves him right for posing wet next to the engine.” Arthur can’t quite help his smile at that, because it isn’t really Leon’s fault but it is hilarious to watch him.

The silence between them is a little easier after that, and after Leon’s wife hits her husband with her plate, laughing, and leaves him to make his own escape, Arthur leans back and says: “Not that I don’t appreciate the company, but is there a reason you aren’t following up with Merlin?” He nods over at where Merlin is deep in animated discussion with some of the younger neighborhood kids who’ve invited themselves to the party. “Saw you over there with him earlier.”

Gwaine gives him an aggrieved look. “Hey,” he says, “I didn’t know, man, lighten up already.”

Arthur might goggle blankly a little from surprise, because he knows all of the words coming out of Gwaine’s mouth but he doesn’t understand any of them.

“I pulled him from a burning building _first_ ,” Gwaine continues, running a hand through his hair. “The universe is fucking unfair. But whatever, I’m not looking to get in your man’s pants.”

Arthur’s aware that his expression would not be out of place on poisoned fish. “My—say _what_ now?”

“I’m not _blind_ , you know,” Gwaine says, before giving him a huge, filthy wink and nudging him in the ribs. “So tell me,” he says, “one brother to another: how’s that ass? As sweet with the jeans off as it is with them on?”

“I...” Arthur starts, completely sideswiped by shock.

Gwaine links his hands behind his head and leans back, grinning. “Don’t be shy; share with the class.”

“Excuse me,” Arthur says, because Gwaine is clearly delusional, and Arthur... Arthur’s afraid the delusion might be catching. “I have to go.”

He gets up with half-formed thoughts and a vague, spinning vertigo, and makes at first for the relative safety of where Elyan is standing with Percival having what looks like a normal, non-insane conversation, but as he turns he catches sight of Merlin leaving, slipping out through the crowd toward the back alley, heading for the station.

“Fuck it,” Arthur says, loudly enough to startle the three people nearest him badly enough that they lose forks and pasta salad to the ground, and earning no less than six glares from old ladies and parents shepherding small children. He ignores them, elbowing his way out of the crush around the grill, running once he breaks free until he catches up with Merlin near the station’s garage.

He means to say _stop_ , to actually talk about things like a rational person, but Gwaine’s crazy was obviously contagious, because nothing sensible comes to his head once he’s called out Merlin’s name and Merlin turns to face him. Merlin looks so drawn, so unhappy and exhausted, and Arthur is only now just realizing what making Merlin scrub and haul things and do a hundred meaningless chores might really have been about, and before he can think about the consequences Arthur’s kissing Merlin, hands digging hard into Merlin’s bony shoulders to pull him close.

It’s a damn good—a _damn_ good—kiss, and Arthur is going to have to ask Merlin where he learned his technique so that Arthur can hunt down whoever Merlin has been kissing and either kill them or thank them, but then Merlin’s breaking away, looking terrified.

“Arthur,” he starts, and Arthur is just resigning himself to a miserably embarrassing _it’s not you, it’s me_ speech when he turns just enough to see the fire truck—shit, the _truck_ , he thinks wildly; the historical society is going to kill him and bury the pieces of his body where no one will ever find them—with flames billowing fat and high out of its windows and from beneath the hood.

He moves toward it automatically; he doesn’t know what he’s going to do to save it but he knows he has to try, and he’s ignoring the hurt, tight feelings wound over and around each other at the pit of his stomach, when Merlin says, “Wait!”

Arthur stops, partly because Merlin’s voice contains levels of desperation but there’s something else there, a commanding intensity Arthur’s never heard from him before—has never heard from anyone before, except perhaps occasionally from his father—and partly because the fire is... out. Without dying, without burning itself out: it simply _isn’t_ , as if it had never been.

There is a second where Arthur’s mind struggles, rebelling against one explanation before rebelling again at the next, and in the end he begins with the easiest.

“You,” he says, rounding on Merlin. Merlin is hunched in on himself, almost as if he’s expecting this, but not even the wretched expression on his face makes Arthur feels any less murderously angry. “You’ve been setting these fires all along.”

Merlin says nothing, doesn’t even look at Arthur, and that’s all the answer Arthur needs.

“I can’t believe you,” he says, quiet because he can’t bring himself to be loud. It’s as if the rage has displaced everything else inside him, swelling up, bitter and oily, into his throat. “You really are a piece of work, Emrys.”

There must be something in his words, because that makes Merlin flinch. “Let me explain—”

“What is there to explain?” Arthur interrupts, cold. There’s a part of him that wants to destroy Merlin, tear him into pieces and leave him in the dirt, but more of him wants to see Merlin behind bars, Merlin on trial for the world to see. Merlin deserves to go to prison for life, because no one has died yet, but that doesn’t mean no one ever _will_.

He ignores the grief that tries briefly to claw for dominance, because Merlin had been something different, something interesting—but that isn’t what Merlin is, what he _really_ is, and if Arthur has learned nothing else from his father, it’s to be pragmatic in the face of a world turned suddenly sideways.

“No, Arthur,” Merlin tries again, and this time he tries moving toward Arthur, one hand out in supplication. “Let me explain.”

Arthur steps back. “You can explain to the police,” he says, and he turns away back toward the cookout, where he knows Gwen and Cendred and the captain are talking with the mayor, but then Merlin makes a panicky noise and suddenly he’s hanging onto Arthur’s arm. Arthur has just enough time to think that Merlin is deceptively heavy before Merlin starts talking.

“Listen,” Merlin’s asking. “Please, Arthur, listen, just for five minutes, I promise I’ll tell you everything, only don’t talk to anyone yet; you can tell whoever you want after, but please, let me _explain_.”

Arthur yanks his arm loose but he stops and says, “ _Fine_ ,” because it isn’t going to change anything. Merlin can get a grip on himself and confess or try his best to lie his way out of everything, and then Arthur is going to drag him out by his scruffy, lying neck and have him arrested in front of half the town.

*

Merlin tells Arthur everything. He tells him about the calendar, about getting the volunteer job at the station and starting to think about Arthur, about discovering that his magic did more things than open cans and make sparkly things and perfect lattes. Merlin tells him every single thing, unflinching, because anything he says now isn’t going to make his situation any worse. He’d seen the look on Arthur’s face when Arthur had seen the truck, seen the way it went crumpled and terrible, and nothing, he knows, can make that better except the truth. 

It’s clear Arthur doesn’t believe him; he stands with his arms folded and listens to Merlin without a word, without giving any sort of clue that Merlin can use to sway him, and when Merlin finishes he turns away again, crisp and cold in his short-sleeved button-up and ironed khaki shorts— _ironed_ , Merlin thinks in despair, and still Merlin wants Arthur to kiss him again, feels the rejection and disappointment like a hot knife in his gut. He sags, letting his head drop forward onto his chest, closing his eyes against the failure. He’ll go with Arthur quietly because there isn’t another option, not for him, let Arthur lay him bare before the curiosity seekers and the skeptics because the thought of running only makes him exhausted. 

There’s a soft _whuff_ of air, and he looks down at the cold touch to his hand—Annie’s nose, where she’s bumping him with her head, wanting attention. “Hey,” he says, quiet, scratching briefly just behind her ears. “Sorry.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying it to her; it’s easier to tell her, he supposes. “Go on,” he adds, crossing his arms over his chest to get them out of her reach and nodding toward Arthur, who halfway down the alley by now. She only cocks her head and gives him a worried look. “Shoo,” he tells her, and she looks between him and Arthur, whining.

Merlin has to bite down hard on a hysterical laugh. Jesus, he can’t even catch a break from a _dog_.

Arthur stops at the sound of Annie whining—he’s always been too attached to her for his own good—and glances back. “Annie,” he calls, but instead of trotting obediently over as she usually does, Annie sits.

Arthur mutters words which Merlin can’t hear but can guess, and strides back over to her. “Annie,” he commands again, ignoring Merlin. “Come.”

She lies down, her chin pressing on her crossed paws, and stares up at both of them from under mournful eyebrows.

“For the love of—” Arthur bursts out, and points toward his house. “Annie! We’re going!” Annie looks at Merlin, beseeching, and the furious glare that earns him from Arthur cuts deep.

“I’m not doing anything,” Merlin protests, and then his mouth runs away with him. He’s at the bottom, rock-bottom, and as much as he knew, somehow, that it was always inevitable, it doesn’t stop the way Arthur looks at him now from hurting like hell. “I never _meant_ to do anything. Arthur—” But there’s the familiar rolling twist again, a swelling itch at the back of his mind, and the dumpster behind the station flames up, and as Arthur turns at the sound of it Merlin squeezes his eyes shut and yells: “ _Stop_!”, because this is _his_ fucking magic, and it’s time he dealt with it; even if he can’t do anything about it he’s desperate enough right now to try, hopeless enough to go flying at it with nothing but the red heat of what he’d felt when Arthur turned away. “Just _stop_ , stop ruining my fucking life!”

It takes him a few minutes to focus back on reality; he finds himself hunched over, hands clenched on either side of his head over his ears. The fire is out, and Arthur is staring at him.

Merlin drops his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says, “truly, about everything. I just... I want you to know I would have changed it if I could.” When he raises his head again, Arthur’s look has turned sharper, more speculative. It makes Merlin nervous.

“You’ve never been able to control it before?”

“No,” Merlin replies, wary.

“This is the first time you’ve been able to stop a fire?”

Merlin thinks back. “There was the bacon grease,” he says finally. “But I think that was more luck and my best towel than anything else.”

Arthur raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment, except to say: “Could you do it again? With a bigger fire?”

“Maybe?” Merlin shrugs. “I haven’t tried it, but this—it feels big. I probably could, if I practiced.”

“Are you sure?”

That makes Merlin laugh, rough and self-deprecating. “I’m not sure about anything, not with magic.”

It makes Arthur purse his lips, but somewhere in the last minute he’s lost the deadweight of anger that had been weighing down his face, his shoulders. “Come on,” he says, and it takes Merlin a minute to realize he isn’t speaking to Annie anymore.

“What?”

Arthur just huffs out a breath and grabs his wrist, yanking Merlin along toward the cookout, and Annie leaps up after them, trotting so close she trips Merlin three times before they reach the empty lot. Merlin expects them to go over to Gwen, or to Uther, who’s speaking with the man who had questioned Merlin for an hour that morning, but instead Arthur makes for the grill and Morgana. He leans close, speaking to her too softly for Merlin to catch any of his words, but Morgana gives him a keen look and yells, “Percival!”

Percival’s voice comes from behind Merlin and makes him jump. “Yeah?”

Morgana holds out the spatula, a stern expression on her face. “Guard the grub. Don’t let Elyan’s oldest have fifths; he was sick all over the car last year.”

“Of course, milady,” Percival says, throwing a salute, and Morgana relinquishes control of the grill, wiping her hands off on her black apron.

“Let’s go, then,” she tells Arthur, and leads the way around the hedge to Arthur’s door. Merlin is still trailing unhappily behind Arthur, unable to break free; before they’re quite clear of the party he catches sight of Gwaine, who’s staring at them in something close to wonder. Merlin frowns a question at him.

_Threesome?_ Gwaine mouths, looking stunned, and Merlin can feel the blush hot on the back of his neck and his ears as he shakes his head vigorously. It’s probably too late, though, he thinks morosely as Arthur tugs him into the house and shuts the door. If he isn’t dead by morning, he’ll have to live for the rest of his days fending off rumors about whether Morgana or Arthur is kinkier in bed.

“Alright,” Morgana says when they’re all arranged in Arthur’s living room, she and Arthur on opposite ends of the couch while Merlin stands awkwardly between them and the television. “Tell me what’s going on, someone.”

“Tell her, Merlin,” Arthur says by way of answer, and when Merlin sucks in a shocked breath, Arthur gives him a look that says _trust me_.

Merlin shakes his head, but he’s long since learned his limits—the lack of them—when it comes to Arthur. He explains everything again, feeling a great deal more self-conscious with Morgana watching him with sharp eyes, her nails tapping on the low wooden coffee table in front of her. He tries to leave some of the more embarrassing bits out, but Arthur clears his throat and raises an eyebrow, and Merlin blushes harder and puts them back in. Annie comes over and leans against him, which makes it easier to talk, and he reaches down absentmindedly to rub the soft fur on her ears.

When he gets to the end of the story and starts fumbling for words, Arthur fetches a small garbage basket from the bathroom and sets it down in the middle of the floor.

“Try it again,” he says, nodding at Merlin. “Just like in the alley, but smaller.”

Merlin looks at it, concentrates, but there’s nothing. Arthur sits on the arm of the sofa, gazing steadily back when Merlin looks up at him helplessly, and his expression makes Merlin take a breath and concentrate harder, feeling in the dark of his mind for the familiar twist, the press of his magic—

“Well,” Morgana says when the accumulated tissues in the can flare up. Merlin thinks she’s going to add something else, but she only sits forward, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully and her hands clasped in her lap. 

Arthur nods at Merlin again, and Merlin still has the threads of the magic together in his head, tugs at them deftly, and the fire winks out as quickly as it had arrived.

“ _Well_ ,” Morgana says again, with satisfaction this time, and she and Arthur exchange a look Merlin can’t read. He’s confused, and irritable with it; he wants to know what they’re trying to get at, why Arthur is putting him through all of this when at the end of the day Merlin’s still the one who’s been setting accidental fires, the one Arthur is duty-bound to prosecute. Before he can ask, though, Morgana and Arthur have both grabbed one of his arms and are steering him toward the sink. It’s like they’ve suddenly acquired a telepathic connection, Merlin thinks sourly while Morgana rips up a notepad she finds by the phone into the sink and Arthur finds the matches.

“Again,” Morgana orders, once she’s lit the paper on fire, and Merlin focuses; it’s harder to do it with this one than the fires his own magic had started, but it doesn’t take him long to snuff the flames.

Morgana and Arthur are quiet for a long moment, which only allows Merlin to grow more peevish from nerves. He isn’t used to feeling on display like this; he wants _answers_ , not more hoops to jump through for an unknown purpose. 

“Uther will never go for it,” Morgana says suddenly, which clarifies nothing.

Arthur leans back on the counter. “Obviously we’d have to be careful.”

There’s another beat of silence, and Morgana grins. “He’ll put us all out of a job, you know.”

“I hope so,” is Arthur’s reply, and Merlin is ready to yell at both of them until they tell him what the _hell_ is going on, what they’re talking about—and then he sees Arthur’s eyes flick toward the TV, just for a second, and it clicks. 

They want him on the team, he thinks, stunned. They want him putting out _real_ fires, training his magic just as they train with hoses and ladders. It makes sense; the whole charade makes sense now: firefighting is Arthur’s life, his mission, and every time he’s too late it’s a suffocating thing for him, another weight to carry on his shoulders that deadens another little piece of his self. 

“Are you sure?” Merlin blurts out, because he _isn’t_ sure, isn’t sure at all that this is a good idea, but Morgana smiles at him and Arthur claps him on the back.

“We’re sure,” Morgana says while Arthur squeezes Merlin’s shoulder gently. “Though it won’t happen right away. The details...” she trails off speculatively, chewing on her thumbnail.

“We’ll have to figure those out later,” Arthur cuts in firmly. “We can’t do anything today, not with the cookout.”

“Yes,” Morgana agrees, still looking pensive. Merlin shifts, discomfited. Arthur hasn’t moved his hand: it’s still resting warm and solid on Merlin’s shoulder, a clear signal, but Merlin doesn’t know of what, and can’t ask until Morgana leaves. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts and clenches his fingers together, trying desperately to act casually. He knows Morgana well enough to know he doesn’t want her fishing for information he hasn’t figured out himself yet.

“Is that—” Arthur begins, squinting out a window on the far side of the room toward the colorful hubbub of the cookout. “I think Aredian is looking at your grill, Morgana.”

“He is _not_ ,” Morgana says, whirling around to peer out the same window. “That little creep... I’m going to _kill_ him, the bastard, he’s the reason I had to get rid of the last one.”

She’s out the door before anyone can say anything else; Merlin listens to the muffled noise Arthur is making for a few puzzled moments before he figures out Arthur is _laughing_.

“I take it Aredian isn’t really out there,” he ventures, and Arthur’s chuckles get louder.

“Of course he’s out there,” Arthur snorts. “Is he messing with her grill? Probably not. But he _wants_ to, so it was a fair guess anyway.”

Merlin’s about to smile when he feels something warm brush against the back of his neck, and he freezes instead, a curiously thick heat weighing down his limbs and turning his thoughts slow sludgy. Arthur’s moving his hand, trailing his fingers over Merlin’s nape, and he’s standing even closer since Morgana went flying out the door.

“I’m still furious, you know,” Arthur says, his voice soft. His breath is damp against the skin just behind Merlin’s ear, and Merlin can feel the palms of his own hands go clammy. “Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused? How much damage? Millions of dollars worth of lost property, all because of you.”

Merlin turns round at that, an indignant bitterness flooding in and breaking whatever had been holding him still before, because can’t Arthur _see_? “It’s not my fault; it’s _yours_ ,” he argues, awkward and defensive, and he can see that hit Arthur, watches him warily to see what damage that caused.

Arthur blinks a few times, looking nonplussed, and then his face cracks into a grin, into a hundred tiny wrinkles while he laughs and laughs and laughs, and while he’s laughing he pulls Merlin back in close. “Guess I really am irresistible,” he says, still laughing, which is just _vile_ , but Merlin’s still willing to kiss him anyway when his eyes go gentle and warm, leaning in, and Merlin closes his eyes and moves forward to meet him—

“Wait!” Merlin says, remembering and pulling back just in time, leaving Arthur looking confused and disgruntled. “I really,” Merlin pleads, putting his hands on Arthur’s chest and gripping his shirt to hold him close when Arthur tries stepping away, “ _really_ want to kiss you. But I don’t actually want to burn down your house.”

That gives Arthur pause, and he thinks for a moment before brushing a thumb over Merlin’s cheekbone and reaching for his hand. “Come with me,” he tells Merlin, wrapping their fingers together, and Merlin nods against the surprising comfort of Arthur’s hand in his own.

They sneak out the back, taking the long way around the block to avoid the throng at the party. Merlin thinks Arthur might let go once it’s clear Merlin isn’t about to run away, but when he relaxes his grip Arthur only tightens his fingers, leading Merlin through downtown to the cobblestone streets of the tourist district and the river walk. Merlin thinks about asking Arthur where they’re going, but in the end he just settles back to enjoy the experience: strolling hand-in-hand through the summer crowds while the sun sets behind the town and turns the river the same purple as the sky.

He figures out where they’re going long before they get there: the ocean is a long walk, but once they’re out of town there’s only one place for the path to lead them. The beach is a horrific cliché, so terrible Merlin almost stops when they come around the last curve through the marsh and Arthur takes off his shoes to go through the dunes.

“You can’t be serious,” he says to Arthur, but he slips his sandals off as well and scrambles over the shifting ground. The sand is rough against the soles of his feet, too full of rocks to be really comfortable.

Arthur makes a sweeping gesture, grinning. “Plenty of water and sand to put out anything you might start, you idiot,” he declares, and Merlin laughs, chasing him down the beach until Arthur trips and Merlin can tackle him to the ground.

“I am not an idiot,” he says breathlessly, and kisses Arthur to prove it. 

The beach is marvelous, Merlin thinks some time later, a little dazed and out of breath; he doesn’t know why he hasn’t been to the beach with anyone before this. He suspects, though, that coming to the beach with anyone but Arthur would be significantly less spectacular. There is sand in his hair and in his mouth from where he’d left off kissing Arthur’s mouth to try kissing along Arthur’s neck—brilliant, in that Arthur made noises Merlin is sure he needs to hear again very soon; less so in that Merlin got a mouthful of sand when Arthur rolled them over—but he doesn’t care, not when Arthur is sliding warm hands up under Merlin’s shirt, tugging it over his head entirely.

“God, I love you with your shirt off,” Arthur growls. “I’m going to make it a requirement that you have your shirt off at all times.”

“You will not,” Merlin says, laughing as he cards his fingers through Arthur’s hair, which is wild from all the abuse Merlin’s been subjecting it to. “You’re too jealous; I know you.”

“Hmph,” Arthur replies, dangerously, and bends to lick Merlin’s nipple.

“ _Shit_ ,” Merlins says before he can help himself, arching up into the touch. “I’m—I’m jealous too, you know,” he manages while Arthur smoothes a hand up his belly, tickling the fine dark hairs below his navel. “You’re not allowed to do another calendar. No one else gets to see you naked, just me.” 

“You haven’t even seen me naked yet,” Arthur points out, sliding his fingers out along Merlin’s ribs, and Merlin shivers, thinking about Arthur, about all of Arthur’s skin laid out for Merlin, for Merlin’s touch and no one else’s. But sex on the beach might be a good drink but it’s a terrible idea—he knows already that sand is prickly and uncomfortable and has a nasty tendency to get everywhere you don’t want it—so he only pulls at Arthur’s buttons until they’re both shirtless, and then he gives himself over entirely to kissing, to the hot slide of Arthur’s tongue in his mouth, the accidental scrape of teeth that leaves a little zing of pleasure behind and the tickling warmth of Arthur’s fingers trailing over his skin.

It’s fully dark by the time they gradually stop, stealing slower and slower kisses until they’re lying side by side looking up at the deepening indigo of the sky, Merlin’s head pillowed on Arthur’s chest while Arthur twists patterns into Merlin’s hair. The ocean is a steady rushing hiss somewhere to his left, and the only thing that would make this more cheesily romantic would be a—

“Shooting star,” he says, watching one make its steady way toward the horizon.

“That’s a satellite, dumbass,” Arthur tells him, but he sounds too fond for Merlin to really take offense.

“You’re a dumbass,” Merlin replies, rolling over so he can prop his chin on Arthur’s shoulder and look at him, this man who right now holds so much more than the expanding universe.

“Your face is a dumbass,” Arthur says, ever a paragon of clever replies, and tugs at Merlin’s nose.

Merlin tips his head to the side so he can hear Arthur’s heart beating, the air in his lungs moving in time with the waves. “You like it, though.” There’s just a hint of question—this is all too new for him to keep the hesitation out entirely—and Arthur’s expression turns wondering.

“I do,” he says tentatively. “I really sort of do.”

Merlin has lots of things to say to that, starting with _me, too_ , but before he can put them together he’s blindsided by sudden, spectacular realization.

“I didn’t set anything on fire,” he blurts out, and props himself up on his elbows to look at Arthur properly. “Not once.” He feels sideswiped by awe, giddy from it, and he has to kiss Arthur again, just to make sure.

Arthur’s smiling even before they break apart; Merlin can feel the curve of it against his lips. “Nothing?” Arthur asks, and Merlin shakes his head.

“Not one little spark,” he says gleefully. The relief is visceral, something he can feel unraveling from the back of his neck and between his shoulders, a slow uncoiling of tension he’s been building up for months. He feels limp with it, thinks he might stay forever on the beach, might never have the strength to move again, since all of his muscles have collectively dissolved, and mumbles as much into Arthur’s shoulder after dropping his head back down to rest.

Then Arthur says, the mischief in his voice not quite masking the eagerness: “I suppose you’ll want to skip coming back to my place now that you’ve been cured, then. Pity,” he sighs. “But you know best.”

Merlin flicks Arthur’s ear for that, and struggles to his feet. “Think I might make it that far,” he says, searching for his shirt while Arthur sits up and looks around for his own. “You’ll have to promise me an incentive, though.”

“I can think of plenty of those,” Arthur replies, voice deep and silken, coming up behind Merlin to put his hands on Merlin’s hips and tuck his thumbs under the waistband of his shorts. “Don’t you worry.”

“I’m not,” Merlin tells him truthfully, and they shuffle back through the dunes to the path into town. The moon is coming up bright over the water behind them, Arthur’s hand is sliding into his back pocket, and Merlin thinks that maybe—just maybe—things might be starting to set themselves right for once.

 

*

 

_You know I’d never ask you to change  
If perfect’s what you’re searching for then just stay the same  
So don’t even bother asking if you look okay  
You know I’ll say:  
When I see your face  
There’s not a thing that I would change  
Cause you’re amazing  
Just the way you are_

_(Bruno Mars, “Just The Way You Are”)_


End file.
